Monthly Archives: October 2014

Gronk vs. the greats

Rob Gronkowski scored another touchdown Sunday night in the Patriots’ 43-16 pasting of the previously unbeaten Bengals. That’s what Gronkowski does — at a rate never seen before by a tight end (and by few other receivers in NFL history). His latest, a 16-yarder over the middle from Tom Brady, was his 46^thscoring catch in 56 games. Do the math, and it comes out to .82 TDs per game. Wow.

Only four receivers — all wideouts — have had more scoring receptions in their first 56 games. Their names should be pretty recognizable. Three are in the Hall of Fame, and the other, I’ve got to believe, will make it when he’s eligible.

MOST TOUCHDOWNS CATCHES, FIRST 56 GAMES

[table width=“250px”]

Years, Receiver\,Team,TD

1962-66,Lance Alworth*\, Chargers (AFL),53

1985-88,Jerry Rice*\, 49ers,50

1965-69,Bob Hayes*\, Cowboys,47

1998-01,Randy Moss\, Vikings,47

2010-14,Rob Gronkowski\, Patriots,46

1957-61,Tommy McDonald*\, Eagles,42

[/table]

*Hall of Famer

It’s impressive enough that a tight end is keeping company with some of the greatest deep threats of all time. You get an even greater sense of the Magnitude of Gronk, though, when you compare him to Hall of Famers who played his position. (I threw in a few more who figure to reach Canton eventually — plus Jerry Smith, who held the TD record for tight ends for years and should never be left out of these conversations.)

TD CATCHES BY NOTABLE TIGHT ENDS, FIRST 56 GAMES

[table width= “250px”]

Years,Tight End\, Team,TD

2010-14,Rob Gronkowski\, Patriots,46

2010-13,Jimmy Graham\, Saints,35

1961-64,Mike Ditka*\, Bears,30

2003-06,Antonio Gates\, Chargers,30

1979-83,Kellen Winslow*\, Chargers,29

1965-69,Jerry Smith\, Redskins,27

1963-66,John Mackey*\, Colts,25

1974-78,Dave Casper*\, Raiders,20

1978-81,Ozzie Newsome*\, Browns,19

1997-00,Tony Gonzalez\, Chiefs,19

1968-72,Charlie Sanders*\, Lions,15

2003-06,Jason Witten\, Cowboys,14

1963-66,Jackie Smith*\, Cardinals,11

1990-93,Shannon Sharpe*\, Broncos, 7

[/table]

*Hall of Famer

Sharpe, who finished with 62 touchdown receptions (a record since broken), is a reminder that some players, even future stars, take a while to establish themselves. That wasn’t the case with Gronkowski, of course. In just his ninth game he caught three TD passes against the Steelers and was off to immortality.

That is, if he can stay out of the operating room for a spell. He’s had a rough go if it of late with injuries, but he looked like the Gronk of Old on Sunday night. The Gronk of Old was a wonder to behold.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

The hazards of being a 100-catch receiver

Calvin Johnson is hurt. Again. It’s his ankle this time. Andre Johnson, I see, is also questionable this week with an ankle. And Wes Welker, of course, is a high hit away from another concussion, one that might end his career.

Yes, players get hurt in football. And yes, all these receivers have some mileage on them — a collective 31 seasons and 2,389 receptions. But there’s this to consider, too: The Lions’ Johnson caught 122 passes two years ago, tying him for third most all time, and the Texans’ Johnson and Broncos’ Welker each have had five 100-catch seasons, as many as any receiver in NFL history. We’re talking high-volume wideouts. Really high-volume wideouts.

There’s a price you pay when you’re that kind of player, when you put yourself in harm’s way that often. The receivers of yesteryear, with the exception of a few, weren’t nearly as exposed. Seasons were shorter, for one thing, and the running game was much more prominent. In 1960, when the AFL came into being and began changing the equation with its wide-open play, the record for receptions in a season was 84, by Rams Hall of Famer Tom Fears. At that point, only 11 NFL receivers (a total of 16 times) had caught as many as 60 passes in a season. Sixty! Now we have wideouts who are doubling that figure — and then some.

Still, it’s just in the last 20 years that the 100-reception season has become commonplace. Even when the schedule was expanded to 16 games in 1978, only one receiver in the next decade had 100 grabs: the Redskins’ Art Monk in ’84 (a record 106). But then there were eight 100-catch guys in ’95, led by the Lions’ Herman Moore with 123 (another record), and that was the tipping point. Last year, five wideouts had 100 or more; the year before, six did. Yawn.

SEASONS WITH THE MOST 100-CATCH RECEIVERS*

[table width=“100px”]

Year,No.

1995,8

2012,6

2009,6

2007,6

2001,6

2013,5

2002,5

[/table]

*tight ends included

(Note: Through 1994, there were 10 100-catch seasons in all of NFL-AFL history.)

The receivers aren’t yawning, though. They’re too busy picking themselves off the ground, checking to make sure they aren’t missing any body parts and telling the trainer how many fingers he’s holding up. Think about it: In Calvin Johnson’s 122-reception season, he was targeted 204 times. That means there were 82 other occasions, aside from his catches, when he had a chance to be hit. No wonder his knee was bothering him last year. He had more targets in 2012 than the Eagles’ LeSean McCoy had rushing attempts (200 in 12 games).

Speaking running backs, for the longest time coaches seemed to be conducting a laboratory experiment with them: How much can the human body endure? (See James Wilder’s 492-touch exercise in excess with the 1984 Bucs.) But in recent seasons they’ve stopped putting so much of the load on one back, opting instead for a by-committee approach. This might not be as good for the back’s numbers, but it’s probably better for his long-term health. McCoy’s 314 carries last year, for instance, were the fewest by a league leader since 1990 (and the second-fewest in a non-strike season since the advent of the 16-game schedule).

Further evidence: Only once in this decade has a back had as many as 350 rushing attempts in season (Arian Foster, 2012 Texans, 351). In the first four years of the previous decade, a back reached that level 10 times. And you can’t just attribute it to teams passing more, because the number of rushing attempts per team in 2000 (441.2, on average) was pretty comparable to last year (433.5).

Maybe it’s time for coaches to come to the same conclusion about receivers: that perhaps there are limits, that it might not be the greatest idea for a wideout — many of whom aren’t exactly the biggest players on the field — to catch as many passes as some of today’s wideouts are catching. Never mind whether or not it might shorten a guy’s career. How about the possibility it might shorten his life — or at the very least, affect the quality of his life in the not-too-distant future?

Let’s face it, pro football is a demolition derby — vroom, vroom, crash, crash. And teams have always looked at players as very disposable commodities. When one breaks, you move on to the next name on the depth chart. But maybe, with a little restraint, they don’t have to break quite so often.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Coaching hires in the 2000s: the sequel

Fear of Information Overload yesterday caused me to hold back some of the data I’d gathered for my post on NFL coaching hires in the 2000s. Believe it or not, there are a few other things I’d like to share — if I haven’t worn you out on the subject.

The first one I’ve already touched on, but I want to go into it in greater depth: the increasing number of coaches who never played in the NFL or AFL. More and more, it’s becoming a game of Career Coaches, guys who might have been college players but, as soon as they were done, focused on climbing the coaching ladder.

The most extreme example is Todd Haley, the son of a former NFL cornerback and personnel man, who played golf in college before his father, then with the Jets, brought him into the family business as a scouting-department assistant. Todd, of course, later served as the Chiefs’ coach for nearly three seasons (2009-2011) and is now the Steelers’ offensive coordinator.

In the old days, there were no erstwhile college golfers holding down NFL head-coaching jobs. There were only ex-pro players and, occasionally, men who had coached on the college level. As late as the ’50s and even into the ’60s, it wasn’t unheard of for an active player to also be an assistant coach (e.g. Tom Landry with the Giants). Heck, in 1961, just months after he’d led the Eagles to their last championship, Hall of Fame quarterback Norm Van Brocklin was pacing the sideline as the coach of the expansion Vikings.

You don’t see that sort of thing anymore. Maybe it’s because the coach’s life, with its long hours and year-to-year uncertainty, has limited appeal to today’s players. Or maybe it’s because players, if they play six, eight, 10 years or longer in the league, feel they’re too far behind the Career Coaches, have too much ground to make up, to have a realistic shot at landing good coaching jobs. So they go into business, where their name recognition can help them, or perhaps they end up in the media, talking about the game instead of teaching it.

There are all kinds of reasons, no doubt, why the situation has developed the way it has. But the numbers are inescapable: In 1970, the first season after the AFL-NFL merger, 16 of the 26 coaches in the league were former players; this season, only six of 32 are (not counting the Saints’ Sean Payton, whose three NFL games during the 1987 strike were of the replacement variety).

The circle of life — or what used to be the circle of life in pro football — has been broken. It’s no longer, for those who might desire it: playing career, coaching career, possibly head coaching career (either pro or college). It’s now playing career (coached mostly by Career Coaches) followed Something Else (because the Career Coaches have gotten too much of a jump). The 49ers’ Jim Harbaugh, the Rams’ Jeff Fisher, the Titans’ Ken Whisenhunt, the Panthers’ Ron Rivera, the Cowboys’ Jason Garrett — erstwhile NFLers all — are rare exceptions these days. And in the years to come, the exceptions figure to be even rarer. That, at least, has been the pattern over the last 40-odd years.

Check out the difference between the first 24 Super Bowls (1966-89 seasons) and the second 24 (1990-2013). After Super Bowl I, which featured Career Coaches Vince Lombardi (Packers) and Hank Stram (Chiefs), the next 23 had at least one coach, and sometimes two, who were former NFL or AFL players. The rundown:

Former NFL/AFL Players Who Coached a Team to the Super Bowl, 1966-89

[table width=”450px”]

SB,Coach\, Team,Opponent,Result

II,John Rauch\, Raiders,Packers,L\, 33-14

III,Don Shula\, Colts,Jets,L\, 16-7

IV,Bud Grant\, Vikings,Chiefs,L\, 24-7

V,Don McCaffrey\, Colts,Cowboys,W\, 16-13

V,Tom Landry\, Cowboys, Colts,L\, 16-13

VI,Tom Landry\, Cowboys,Dolphins,W\, 24-3

VI,Don Shula\, Dolphins,Cowboys,L\, 24-3

VII,Don Shula\, Dolphins,Redskins,W\, 14-7

VIII,Don Shula\, Dolphins,Vikings,W\, 24-7

VIII,Bud Grant\, Vikings,Dolphins,L\, 24-7

IX,Chuck Noll\, Steelers,Vikings,W\, 16-6

IX,Bud Grant\, Vikings, Steelers,L\, 16-6

X,Chuck Noll\, Steelers,Cowboys,W\, 21-17

X,Tom Landry\, Cowboys,Steelers,L\, 21-17

XI,Bud Grant\, Vikings,Raiders,L\, 32-14

XII,Tom Landry\, Cowboys,Broncos,W\, 27-10

XIII,Chuck Noll\, Steelers,Cowboys,W\, 35-31

XIII,Tom Landry\, Cowboys,Steelers,L\, 35-31

XIV,Chuck Noll\, Steelers,Rams,W\, 31-19

XV,Tom Flores\, Raiders,Eagles,W\, 27-10

XVI,Forrest Gregg\, Bengals,49ers,L\, 26-21

XVII,Don Shula\, Dolphins,Redskins,L\, 27-17

XVIII,Tom Flores\, Raiders,Redskins,W\, 38-9

XIX,Don Shula\, Dolphins,49ers,L\, 38-16

XX,Mike Ditka\, Bears,Patriots,W\, 46-10

XX,Raymond Berry\, Patriots,Bears,L\, 46-10

XXI,Dan Reeves\, Broncos,Giants,L\, 39-20

XXII,Dan Reeves\, Broncos,Redskins,L\, 42-10

XXIII,Sam Wyche\, Bengals,49ers,L\, 20-16

XIV,Dan Reeves\, Broncos,49ers,L\, 55-10

[/table]

Summary of the first 24 Super Bowls:

● 23 had at least one coach who was a former NFL/AFL player (95.8%).

● 7 had two coaches who were former players (29.2%).

● Super Bowl XX (Ditka-Berry) is the last one that had two coaches who were former players.

● 12 former players coached teams to the Super Bowl:

[table width=”150px”]

Coach,W-L

Noll,4-0

Shula,2-4

Landry,2-3

Grant,0-4

Reeves*,0-3

Flores,2-0

McCafferty,1-0

Ditka,1-0

Rauch,0-1

Gregg,0-1

Berry,0-1

Wyche,0-1

[/table]

*Had a fourth appearance (and loss) with the 1998 Falcons.

● 12-18 combined record (.400), 30 of 48 berths (62.5%).

● 6 former players won (Noll, Shula, Landry, Flores, McCafferty, Ditka).

On to the second half of Super Bowl history . . .

Former NFL/AFL Players Who Coached a Team to the Super Bowl, 1990-2013

[table width=”450px”]

SB,Coach\, Team,Opponent,Result

XXX,Bill Cowher\, Steelers,Cowboys,L\, 27-17

XXXIII,Dan Reeves\, Falcons,Broncos,L\, 34-19

XXXIV,Jeff Fisher\, Titans,Rams,L\, 23-16

XL,Bill Cowher\, Steelers,Seahawks,W\, 21-10

XLI,Tony Dungy\, Colts,Bears,W\, 29-17

XLIII,Ken Whisenhunt\, Cardinals,Steelers,L\, 27-23

XLVII,Jim Harbaugh\, 49ers,Ravens,L\, 34-31

[/table]

Summary of the last 24 Super Bowls:

● 7 had a coach who was a former player (29.2%).

● 0 had two coaches who were former players (0%).

● 6 former players coached teams to the Super Bowl:

[table width=”150px”]

Coach,W-L

Cowher,1-1

Dungy,1-0

Reeves,0-1

Fisher,0-1

Whisenhunt,0-1

Harbaugh,0-1

[/table]

● 2-5 combined record (.286); 7 of 48 berths (14.6%).

● 2 former players won (Cowher, Dungy).

Total for the 48 Super Bowls:

● 37 of 96 berths (38.5%).

● 14-23 combined record (.378).

● 6 former players won one of the first 20 Super Bowls (McCafferty, Landry, Shula, Noll, Flores, Ditka).

● 2 former players have won one of the last 28 Super Bowls (Cowher, Dungy).

You can see the trend, too, in the following list:

Former NFL/AFL Players Hired as Head Coaches in the 2000s

● 2000 (1 of 7 vacancies) — Jim Haslett/Saints.

● 2001 (3 of 8) — Marty Schottenheimer/Redskins, Dick LeBeau/Bengals, Herman Edwards/Jets.

● 2002 (4 of 8) — Steve Spurrier/Redskins, Tony Dungy/Colts, Marty Schottenheimer/Chargers, Mike Tice/Vikings.

● 2003 (1 of 5) — Jack Del Rio/Jaguars.

● 2004 (1 of 7) — Mike Mularkey/Bills.

● 2005 (0 of 3) — None.

● 2006 (4 of 10) — Herman Edwards/Chiefs, Art Shell/Raiders, Gary Kubiak/Texans, Jauron/Bills.

● 2007 (1 of 7) — Ken Whisenhunt/Cardinals.

● 2008 (1 of 4) — Jim Zorn/Redskins.

● 2009 (1 of 11) — Mike Singletary/49ers.

● 2010 (0 of 3) — None.

● 2011 (5 of 8) — Jim Harbaugh/49ers, Leslie Frazier/Vikings, Jason Garrett/Cowboys, Mike Munchak/Titans, Ron Rivera/Panthers.

● 2012 (2 of 7) — Jeff Fisher/Rams, Mike Mularkey/Jaguars.

● 2013 (1 of 8) — Doug Marrone/Bills.

● 2014 (1 of 7) — Ken Whisenhunt/Titans.

Note: Interim coaches not included.

● Total: 26 of 103 hires (25.2%).

● 1 has won the Super Bowl (Dungy).

● 3 have taken a team to the Super Bowl (Dungy, Whisenhunt, Harbaugh). Record: 1-2, .333.

● That’s 3 Super Bowl berths out of 28 (10.7%).

Where does this leave us? Well, I’m not convinced the NFL would be radically different if there were more former players serving as head coaches. But I am convinced the game would be better. Why? Because there are undoubtedly some very good football minds that aren’t going into coaching, many more than before. And just as there are never enough good quarterbacks, there are never enough good coaches. Remember: 12 of the first 20 Super Bowls were won by teams coached by ex-players.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Friday Night Fights V: Ernie Ladd vs. Wahoo McDaniel

Not sure exactly when Ernie Ladd and Wahoo McDaniel, two heroes of the early AFL, met in this tag-team match at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. YouTube says it was “the early ’70s.” That’ll have to suffice. Wrestling’s records, I’m afraid, aren’t nearly as exacting (or available) as boxing’s are.

Each man was legendary in his own way. Ladd was as enormous as he was talented — a 6-foot-9, 325-pound (at his heaviest), all-league defensive tackle for the Chargers. John Schmitt, the Jets’ center, had a great quote about playing against him for the first time. “I looked up across the line of scrimmage,” he said, “and there was Ernie Ladd. His eyeballs weighed five pounds apiece.”

Ladd also had a prodigious appetite, and is said to have eaten 124 pancakes at one sitting in a contest. If you want to find out more about the “Big Cat,” as he was called, check out this piece I wrote about him in 2007, not long after he died. It only begins to do him justice.

McDaniel, a 6-1, 235-pound linebacker, was a novelty because of his Native American heritage. He came from Choctaw stock and would enter the ring wearing a feathered headdress. HIs celebrity skyrocketed when he was traded from the near-invisible Broncos to the Jets in 1964, the year before Joe Namath arrived. The Shea Stadium P.A. announcer would say, “Tackle by . . . guess who?” And the crowd would shout, “Wahoo!”

Bud Shrake wrote a classic portrait of him in Sports Illustrated 50 years ago. A must read (if only to be reminded of how great SI used to be).

It’s hard to say how many times Ladd and McDaniel met on the mat, but — wrestling being wrestling — it was certainly more than a few. Here’s an account of one bout in Dallas in 1966 that ended in a draw when “both were counted out on the ring apron.”

Guess it was part of their act, because they did it again in Lakeland, Fla., in 1978:

In the following clip, McDaniel is teamed with Cowboy Bill Watts, a former teammate at the University of Oklahoma, where they played under Hall of Famer Bud Wilkinson. In fact, Wahoo still holds the Sooners record for longest punt: 91 yards. Watts, a defensive tackle, left school early and signed with the Houston Oilers, but was cut in camp in 1961 (something I never knew until I researched this).

Ladd’s partner is the equally famed Billy Graham. You can watch the whole video if you want; I’ve just pulled out some footage of Wahoo and Big Cat going at it, a little over a minute’s worth. As you’ll see, they both do some damage.

“He was a wild, crazy Indian,” McDaniel’s daughter, Nicky Rowe, said when he died in 2002. “He was bigger than life. He was amazing.”

As we pick up the action, Graham, in trouble, is about to tag Ernie, who then climbs through the ropes to get at Wahoo. Brace yourselves.

Ernie Ladd revisited

Since Ernie Ladd, the mammoth defensive tackle for the Chargers (and others) in the ’60s, is featured in this week’s Friday Night Fight, I thought I’d post my tribute to him when he died in 2007. Hopefully it’ll give you a better sense of the man — large in every respect.

“He was so big and strong, he didn’t have to be mean.”

— Billy Shaw, the Bills’ Hall of Fame guard

Everything about Ernie Ladd was supersized, from his height (6-9, same as Too Tall Jones) to his appetite (124 pancakes at one sitting). He was a 325-pound defensive tackle in an era, the 1960s, when a 250-pounder was considered strapping. The ground shook — and so did opponents — when Ladd walked.

He also hit Bobo Brazil over the head with a chair once.

This was in 1971, after his days as a quarterback cruncher for the Chargers, Oilers and Chiefs were over. Back then, you see, a fellow as large — indeed, mythic — as Ernie couldn’t simply be a professional football player. There was too much money to be made in the wrestling racket. As 49ers Hall of Famer Leo Nomellini, another moonlighting grappler, put it, “After you hit 30 or 32, football hurts your bones. A wrestler can go until he’s 45 or 50 and be good at it.”

Ladd, who died of cancer Saturday at 68, might have been the last of the breed. Sure, Lawrence Taylor and Fridge Perry did some rolling around, but no big name footballer since the “Big Cat,” as Ernie was called, has had anything resembling a career in the ring. (And none of them, of course, ever had to deal with Bobo Brazil’s dreaded Cocoa Butt.)

We forget how strong the connection was between the pro football and wrestling once upon a time. In the ’20s and ’30s, Jim McMillen, Gus Sonnenberg, Joe Savoldi, Bronko Nagurski and scores of other NFLers took to the mats and helped popularize the sport. Sonnenberg, the Providence Steam Roller’s 5-6 fireplug, introduced the flying tackle; Savoldi, the Chicago Bear by way of Notre Dame, gave us the dropkick. Nagurski, meanwhile, amazed the masses by keeping up a full ring schedule while playing for the Bears in 1937. In one 22-day stretch, he had five football games (from Green Bay to Pittsburgh) and eight wrestling matches (from Vancouver to Philadelphia).

Who knows how good these guys really were between the ropes? (A sportswriter once joked that Bronko was “one of the dozen or 15 world’s wrestling champions who flourished simultaneously a few years ago.”) In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. They put fannies in the seats — and turned the previously moribund mat game into the spectacular it is today.

It was in the cleat marks of Sonnenberg, Nagurski and the rest that Ladd followed. Pro football had never seen a behemoth like him when he joined the Chargers out of Grambling in 1961. In fact, he might still be the greatest extra-large player in the game’s history, a four-time All-Star who played in four title games in eight seasons before his left knee gave out.

“He was so big and strong, he didn’t have to be mean,” said Billy Shaw, the Bills’ Hall of Fame guard.

Courageous, too. After arriving in New Orleans for the 1965 AFL All-Star Game, Ladd and other black players had problems getting white taxicab drivers to pick them up. So they banded together and forced the owners to move the contest. Barely 15,000 showed up for the unplanned event in Houston, making it an embarrassment all around for the young league, but an important point had been made.

Ernie also played out his option that year and became a free agent, a rarity in those days. (Only the strongest of the strong dared to buck management like that.) He signed with Houston for much more money than San Diego was paying him but played just one more full season because of injuries.

There was still wrestling, though. And on the night of Sept. 14, 1971, after the tag team of Flying Fred Curry and the Stomper had fought to a draw with Mitsu Arakawa and Mr. Sato, Ladd tried to take Brazil’s U.S. championship from him. The end of the bout came suddenly, the local newspaper reported, when Bobo was “hit over the head with a chair . . . [and] counted out.”

Alas, because Ernie neglected to pin him — this is wrestling, remember — Brazil retained his belt. “A rematch,” the paper said, “has been set.”

The next time, you’ll be pleased to know, the Big Cat finished the job. After which he probably celebrated by eating “two shrimp cocktails, three dishes of coleslaw, three servings of spinach, three baked potatoes, eight rolls and butter, [a] half gallon of milk, three exotic desserts . . . and four 16-ounce steaks” — as he once did to impress a reporter.

It was just another meal for larger-than-life Ernie Ladd.

“You should see him eat when nobody’s watching,” a teammate said.

From The Washington Times, March 15, 2007

More than you ever wanted to know about coaching hires

Now that Dennis Allen has been asked to turn in his key fob in Oakland, after coaching the Raiders for a mere 36 games (28 of them losses), it might be a good time to talk about NFL coaching hires. It’s a fertile area for study, with plenty of data to analyze, yet little is ever written about it. Coaches come and coaches go — sometimes at a head-spinning rate — and everybody seems fine with that. Maybe it’s because they can’t score points in Fantasy Football.

Take this year’s seven new hires. At the quarter pole of Season 1, this is where they stand:

[table width=“300px”]

Coach\,Team,W-L

Jim Caldwell\, Lions,3-1

Bill O’Brien\, Texans,3-1

Mike Zimmer\, Vikings,2-2

Mike Pettine\, Browns,1-2

Jay Gruden\, Redskins,1-3

Lovie Smith\, Bucs,1-3

Ken Whisenhunt\, Titans,1-3

Total,12-15

[/table]

It’s just a snapshot, sure, but did anybody have much of a feel going into the season about which of these coaches would be successful right out of the chute and which wouldn’t? Along those same lines, would anyone wager much money on which of them — if any — will still be in their jobs, say, five years from now?

Obviously, no coach is an island. Winning takes a village, from the owner and general manager on down. Luck also factors in — especially when you get to draft Oliver Luck with the first pick of the draft instead of JaMarcus Russell or Tim Couch. Even so, there’s much about the selection of an NFL coach that’s just plain mysterious. Here’s why:

There’s no cone drill for a would-be coach to run, no Wonderlic test to take. He doesn’t get asked to jump as high as he can, hoist a barbell until his biceps bark or do anything particularly measurable — except maybe eat a 24-ounce porterhouse at Morton’s during the interview.

Think about it: Teams will put their first-round picks under a magnifying glass, looking for flaws with a jeweler’s scrutiny. The draft has become a national obsession fed by Mel Kiper Jr., Todd McShay and scores of other gurus, amateur and professional. Whose stock is rising? Whose is falling? Should my team trade up? Trade down? Stockpile picks for next year, when talent pool is deeper? Fans take this stuff very seriously. Or to put it another way, you mock their mock draft at your peril.

None of that hysteria — or thoroughness, it would seem — surrounds the hiring of coaches. The Texans (O’Brien) and Bucs (Smith) had their men by Jan. 2, four days after the regular season ended. The other five openings were filled in the next three weeks (and it only took that long because the Browns dawdled before deciding on Pettine). Granted, there’s a practicality to settling on a coach as soon as possible: much work needs to be done. But it makes you wonder how much Deep Thinking is involved in the process, especially since it’s arguably the most crucial decision a club will make.

So why don’t we look at these hires a little more closely, not just the ones this year but all the hires in the 2000s. It gives us a nice-sized sample — 103 in all (interim coaches not included) — from which to spot patterns, draw conclusions and just bat around a subject that, to me, is strangely underexplored. Some of results, no doubt, will surprise you. Such as:

● 26 of the 103 coaches (25.2%) had a quarterback in their first season who either (a.) had started in the Super Bowl or (b.) would start in the Super Bowl. Seems like a lot, doesn’t it? (Of course, part of reason is that we have to include guys like Rex Grossman, Zimmer’s No. 3 in Cleveland, who started in the Super Bowl for the Bears seven seasons ago and, at this stage, is basically on emergency standby. Still, 26 past or future Super Bowl QBs — who would have guessed? And the number can only go up, depending on how some of these young guns (e.g. Luck, Robert Griffin III, Teddy Bridgewater, even Matthew Stafford, who’s still only 26) develop.

● The same number, 26 (25.2%), had a Top 3 draft pick their first year, and 12 (11.7 percent) had the first overall pick (as O’Brien and the Texans did this year).

● Fewer and fewer Super Bowl coaches are former NFL (or AFL) players. Twenty-three of the first 24 Super Bowls featured at least one coach who was an ex-player. The last 24 Super Bowls have been much different; only seven had a coach who had played in the league (not counting the Saints’ Sean Payton, whose NFL “career” consists of three games as a replacement during the 1987 strike).

● Average win total of first-year coaches: 7.1. (Read it and weep. Or perhaps not.)

● 61 (64.2 percent) of them, though, improved the team’s record that first season. You can see, then, why owners aren’t shy about firing coaches, even after one year. They usually get an immediate bump — in the short term, anyway.

OK, that’s enough for now. More — much more — as we go along.

Who gets hired?

When I started crunching the numbers, I had some preconceived notions. For one thing, I figured more offensive than defensive coaches would be getting jobs because the game is so tilted toward the offense. My reasoning: Better to have a head guy who knows quarterbacks and can take advantage of all the rules that favor that side of the ball. After all, defense can be such a fruitless proposition nowadays (though a handful of teams, the champion Seahawks first and foremost, play it well).

Anyway, I was wrong. For the 103 coaches hired since 2000, the offense/defense split is virtually identical: 52/51. This season, before the Allen firing, it was dead even: 16 O, 16 D.

I also thought recycled coaches would be more successful than first-timers. Just a hunch; I didn’t have anything concrete to base it on. (Kickers, it seems, are like that, too.) This time my suspicion was (mostly) right. Here’s how it breaks down:

First-time coaches: 66 (not counting the 2014 hires).

● Made it to the Super Bowl: 11 (16.7%), 4 winners (6.1%), 4-8 record (.333).

● Made it to the conference title game: 15 (22.7%), 11 winners (16.7%), 12-13 record (.480).

● Made the playoffs: 32 (48.5%).

● Finished the job with a winning record: 8 of 48 (16.7%). This number might end up higher because there are still 22 active first-time coaches, several of whom — including Super Bowl winners Mike Tomlin (Steelers), John Harbaugh (Ravens), Sean Payton (Saints) and Mike McCarthy (Packers) — have been quite successful. But it still takes your breath away.

● Finished at .500 or below: 40 of 48 (83.3%).

Recycled coaches: 30 (again, not counting the 2014 hires).

● Super Bowl: 6 (20%), 5 winners (16.7%), 8-3 record (.727).

● Conference title game: 7 (23.3%), 6 winners (20%), 11-5 record (.688).

● Playoffs: 16 (53.3%).

● Finished the job with a winning record: 8 of 24 (33.3%).

● Finished at .500 or below: 16 of 24 (66.7%) Note: Nine recycled coaches are still active.

Admittedly, one coach — e.g. the Patriots’ Bill Belichick, who has been to five Super Bowls and won three — can skew things. But even if you eliminated Belichick, you’d still have as many retreads as first-timers winning rings (4) — and a far higher percentage of them (13.3% to 6.1%).

You’re hired to get fired

There’s a reason people are always saying that, and it’s not just because it rhymes. Look at these figures:

● 30 of 66 first-time coaches (45.4%) — Allen being the latest — were gone within three years. (That includes four who bailed for college jobs and another who resigned rather than shuffle his staff.)

● 12 of 30 recycled coaches (46.7%) also lasted three seasons or less.

● And these percentages likely will increase depending on how the last three coaching classes, who haven’t reached the three-year threshold yet, fare.

Not For Long League, indeed.

Offensive coaches vs. defensive coaches

Offensive (48*):

● Made it to the Super Bowl: 9 (18.8%), 4 winners (8.3%), 5-5 record (.500).

● Made it to the conference title game: 10 (20.8%), 9 winners (18.8%), 10-5 record (.667).

● Made the playoffs: 22 (45.8%).

● Finished the job with a winning record: 7 of 36 (19.4%).

● Finished at .500 or below: 29 of 36 (80.6%).

Defensive (48*):

● Super Bowl: 8 (16.7%), 5 winners (10.4%), 8-5 record (.615).

● Conference title game: 12 (25%), 8 winners (16.7%), 13-13 record (.500).

● Playoffs: 26 (54.2%).

● Finished the job with a winning record: 9 of 35 (25.7%).

● Finished at .500 or below: 26 of 35 (74.3%).

*Not counting 2014 hires.

Again, there’s a Belichick Factor here, but even without him the group has 18 conference title game berths, three more than the offensive bunch. That’s because Tony Dungy (Colts), John Fox (Panthers/Broncos), Lovie Smith (Bears), Mike Tomlin (Steelers), John Harbaugh (Ravens) and Rex Ryan (Jets) all went — or have gone — to two or more.

Note, too, that a significantly higher percentage of defensive coaches have made the playoffs (54.2 to 45.8).

In terms of longevity, here’s the comparison:

● 24 of 36 offensive coaches (66.7%) were fired by the end of their third season.

● 18 of 36 defensive coaches (50%) also never saw Year 4.

Note: 12 offensive and 12 defensive coaches are still on the job.

In-house hires

The sample sizes start to get smaller now. Just 18 coaches fall into this category, eight of whom started with the “interim” title before being given the job outright. (The only current one is the Cowboys’ Jason Garrett.) The breakdown:

● Made it to the Super Bowl: 3 of 18 (16.7%), 0 winners (0%), 0-3 record (.000).

● Made it to the conference title game 3 of 18 (16.7%), 3 winners (16.7%), 3-0 record (1.000).

● Made the playoffs: 6 of 18 (33.3%).

● Finished the job with a winning record: 4 of 17 (23.5 percent). (Garrett is excluded because he’s still coaching.)

● Finished at .500 or below: 13 of 17 (76.5 percent).

● Lasted three seasons or less: 12 of 18 (66.7%).

Coaches who came from the college ranks

There have been 12 of these, an even smaller group.

● Made it to the Super Bowl: 2 of 12 (16.7%), 1 winner (8.3%), 1-1 record (.500).

● Made it to the conference title game: 2 of 12 (16.7%), 2 winners (16.7%), 2-2 record (.500).

● Made the playoffs: 4 of 12 (33.3%).

● Finished the job with a winning record: 0 of 7 (0%).

● Finished at .500 or below: 7 of 7 (100 percent).

Note: 5 are still active, including the Seahawks’ Pete Carroll, the 49ers’ Jim Harbaugh and the Eagles’ Chip Kelly.

● Lasted three seasons or less: 6 of 9 (66.7%). (Three of the active coaches are in their first or second year.)

Unemployed/retired coaches

● Made it to the Super Bowl: 1 of 10 (10%), 1 winner (10%), 2-0 record (1.000). (Take a bow, Tom Coughlin.)

● Made it to the conference title game: 1 of 10 (10%), 1 winner (10%), 2-0 record (1.000).

● Made the playoffs: 5 of 10 (50%).

● Finished the job with a winning record: 2 of 7 (28.6%).

● Finished at .500 or below: 5 of 7 (71.4%).

Note: 3 are still on the sideline — the Giants’ Coughlin, the Rams’ Jeff Fisher and the Bucs’ Lovie Smith.

● Lasted three seasons or less: 3 of 8 (37.5%).

Coaches just fired by another team

This is the smallest bunch of all. I’m talking about guys who were hired immediately after losing a head job somewhere else.

● Made it to the Super Bowl: 2 of 7 (28.6%), 1 winner (14.3%), 1-1 record (.500). Any guesses who the two coaches are? Answer: Tony Dungy, who won with the Colts after being fired by the Bucs, and John Fox, who lost with the Broncos after being canned by the Panthers.

● Made it to the conference title game: 2 of 7 (28.6%), 2 winners (28.6%), 2-1 record (.667).

● Made the playoffs: 5 of 7 (71.4%).

● Finished the job with a winning record: 2 of 5 (40%).

● Finished at .500 or below: 3 of 5 (60%).

Note: Fox and the Chiefs’ Andy Reid, cast off by the Eagles, are still gainfully employed.

● Lasted three seasons or less: 3 of 6 (50%). (Reid is in only his second season in Kansas City.)

Better, worse or the same?

How have coaches done in their first year, compared to the team’s previous season?

● Better record: 61 of 95 (64.2%).

● Same record: 6 of 95 (6.3%).

● Worse record: 28 of 95 (29.5%).

(Dom Capers’ first season with the Texans in 2002 is excluded because it was an expansion team.)

● Missed the playoffs: 69 of 96 (71.9%).

● Went to the playoffs: 27 of 96 (28.1%).

● Took team to the playoffs after it had missed them the season before: 20 of 95 (21.1%).

● Missed the playoffs after the team had gone the season before: 2 of 95 (2.1%).

(Again, Capers was excluded from the last two because the ’02 Texans didn’t have a “season before.”)

● Winning record: 31 of 96 (32.3%).

Of those 31, 25 went to the playoffs, two went with .500 (John Fox/2011 Broncos) or below (Pete Carroll/2010 Seahawks, 7-9) records and six missed them.

● .500 record: 13 of 96 (13.5%). So 44 of 96 (45.8%) finished .500 or better. (And Jeff Fisher just missed with the 2012 Rams at 7-8-1.)

What kind of draft situation do new coaches walk into?

● First overall pick: 12 of 103 (11.7%).

● Top 3 pick: 26 of 103 (25.2%).

● Top 5 pick: 38 of 103 (36.9%).

● Top 10 pick: 61 of 103 (59.2%).

● No first-round pick: 10 of 103 (9.7%).

● Worst top pick of any of the 103 coaches hired since 2000: 95^th (Allen, Raiders, 2012). Yup, that’s a real plum job Dennis landed. (Oakland used the third-rounder to select guard Tony Bergstrom, who has started a grand total of one game.)

Taking Over a Winning Team

None of this year’s new coaches was fortunate enough to inherit a winning club, but since 2000:

● 16 of 102 have (15.7%). (Capers excluded.)

● 10 of the 16 (62.5%) went to the playoffs.

● 5 reached the conference title game (Jon Gruden/2002 Bucs, Bill Callahan/’02 Raiders, Norv Turner/’07 Chargers, Jim Caldwell/’09 Colts, Rex Ryan/’09 Jets).

● 3 made it to the Super Bowl (Gruden/’02 Bucs, Callahan/’02 Raiders, Caldwell/’09 Colts).

● 1 won the Super Bowl (Gruden/’02 Bucs).

● 4 other first-year coaches also went to the conference title game (Jim Mora Jr./’04 Falcons, Sean Payton/’06 Saints, John Harbaugh/’08 Ravens, Jim Harbaugh/’11 49ers). All of them lost. So 9 of 96 coaches (9.4%) went at least as far as the conference title game in their first season.

Moral No. 1: Changing coaches after a winning year isn’t necessarily the worst idea in the world.

Moral No. 2: An almost 1-in-10 chance to get to the conference championship game — for a team that just brought in a new coach — sounds pretty good to me.

Some other factoids:

● Marc Trestman (2013 Bears) is the only coach since 2010 — 33 hires, counting the seven this year — to inherit a winning team. He took over a 10-6 club from Lovie Smith and went 8-8.

● Marty Schottenheimer is the last coach to be fired after a playoff season (14-2 with the ’06 Chargers). The two others this happened to: Tony Dungy (9-7 with the ’01 Bucs) and Steve Mariucci (10-6 — plus a first-round win) with the ’02 49ers.

● The luck of Herman Edwards: Both times he was hired as a head coach, he took over a team that had finished with a winning record the year before but had missed the playoffs — first with the ’01 Jets (9-7 in ’00 under Al Groh, who left for the University of Virginia), then with the ’06 Chiefs (10-6 in ’05 under Dick Vermeil, who retired once and for all). He went 10-6 in his first season with the Jets (and made the playoffs) and 9-7 in his first season with the Chiefs (and made the playoffs again). His team failed to advance both years.

● Vermeil retired twice after having a winning team — the ’99 Rams (successor: Mike Martz) and the ’05 Chiefs (Edwards). Jimmy Johnson (9-7, ’99 Dolphins), Bill Parcells (9-7, ’06 Cowboys), Joe Gibbs (9-7, ’07 Redskins) and Tony Dungy (12-4, ’08 Colts) also retired on a winning note. Five of those six teams made the playoffs (Vermeil’s ’05 Chiefs being the exception).

● Martz (2000 Rams) is the lone coach since 2000 to be handed a Super Bowl winner — or even a Super Bowl loser.

● 1993 was the last year at least half the coaches were former NFL/AFL players (14 of 28). The number has shrunk to six this season (again, not counting picket-line-crosser Payton). That’s 18.8 percent. In 1970, when the two leagues merged, it was 61.5 percent (16 of 26).

What do we make of this mountain of data? Whatever you will, I guess. But sifting through the numbers, an ideal candidate emerges (for me, anyway): a recycled coach from a defensive background who, in a perfect world, has just been fired. Or maybe he’s been out of the game for a season or two.

When you look at the seven new coaches, Lovie Smith comes closest to fitting the profile – the same Lovie, it pains me to add, who lost 56-14 to the Falcons two weeks ago. That’s why, no matter how teams go about them, these coaching searches are still a game of Blind Man’s Bluff. Somewhere out there, though, there has to be another Vince Lombardi, doesn’t there?

Postscript: Because I know you’re dying to find out, here are the 26 Super Bowl quarterbacks I referred to earlier.

First-year coaches who had Super Bowl QBs (past or future)

● Dave Campo, 2000 Cowboys — Troy Aikman (3-0 in the Super Bowl in the past).

● Mike Martz, 2000 Rams — Kurt Warner (1-0 in past, 0-2 in future, 1-2 total).

● Bill Belichick, 2000 Patriots — Drew Bledsoe (0-1 in past).

● Mike Sherman, 2000 Packers — Brett Favre (1-1 in past).

● Tony Dungy, 2000 Colts — Peyton Manning (1-2 in future).

● Marty Schottenheimer, 2002 Chargers — Drew Brees (1-0 in future).

● Bill Callahan, 2002 Raiders — Rich Gannon (0-1 in future — that season).

● Jon Gruden, 2002 Raiders — Brad Johnson (1-0 in future — that season).

● Tom Coughlin, 2004 Giants — Kurt Warner (1-1 in past, 0-1 in future, 1-2 total). The Giants also drafted Eli Manning that year (2-0 in future).

● Norv Turner, 2004 Raiders — Kerry Collins (0-1 in past).

● Lovie Smith, 2004 Bears — Rex Grossman (0-1 in future).

● Mike Mularkey, 2004 Bills — Drew Bledsoe (0-1 in past)

● Romeo Crennel, 2005 Browns — Trent Dilfer (0-1 in past)

● Sean Payton, 2006 Saints — Drew Brees (1-0 in future)

● Brad Childress, 2006 Vikings — Brad Johnson (1-0 in past)

● Mike McCarthy, 2006 Packers — Brett Favre (1-1 in past). Plus, the Packers had drafted Aaron Rodgers (1-0 in future) the year before.

● Ken Whisenhunt, 2007 Cardinals — Kurt Warner (1-1 in past, 0-1 in future, 1-2 total).

● Mike Tomlin, 2007 Steelers — Ben Roethlisberger (1-0 in past, 1-1 in future, 2-1 total).

● John Harbaugh, 2008 Ravens — Joe Flacco (1-0 in future).

● Jim Caldwell, 2009 Colts — Peyton Manning (1-0 in past, 0-2 in future, 1-2 total).

● Jim Mora Jr., 2009 Seahawks — Matt Hasselbeck (0-1 in past).

● Pete Carroll, 2010 Seahawks — Matt Hasselbeck (0-1 in past).

● Mike Shanahan, 2010 Redskins — Donovan McNabb (0-1 in past). The Redskins also had Rex Grossman (0-1 in past) on the roster.

● Leslie Frazier, 2011 Vikings — Donovan McNabb (0-1 in past).

● Mike Munchak, 2011 Titans — Matt Hasselbeck (0-1 in past).

To boil it down further:

— 18 of the 96 first-year coaches (2000-13) had a QB who had started in the Super Bowl in the past (18.8%).

— 10 had a QB who won the Super Bowl in the past (10.4%).

— 12 had a QB who would start in the Super Bowl in the future (12.5%).

— 6 had a QB who would win the Super Bowl in the future (6.3%).

— 5 had a QB who would win the Super Bowl with them as coach (5.2%).

— The 5 coaches who had QBs with a Super Bowl in their past and future: Martz ’00 (Warner), Coughlin ’04 (Warner), Whisenhunt ’07 (Warner), Tomlin ’07 (Roethlisberger), Caldwell ’09 (P. Manning).

● The 3 coaches who had two past and/or future Super Bowl QBs on the roster: Coughlin ’04 (Warner, E. Manning), McCarthy ’06 (Favre, Rodgers), Shanahan ’10 (McNabb, Grossman).

For a fair number of first-year coaches, in other words, the cupboard is far from bare.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Michael Phelps and Bobby Layne

Michael Phelps’ second DUI arrest the other day got me thinking about Hall of Fame quarterback Bobby Layne, another member of the Drinking and Driving Club – and a classic example of how much attitudes toward such behavior have changed. In the ’50s and ’60s, when Layne was weaving down the road, an athlete getting pulled over was more likely to elicit eye rolls from fans than the condemnation being directed at Our Most Famous Swimmer. A different time, to say the least.

Like Phelps, Layne had multiple vehicular episodes — all coming not in his youth but toward the end of his career, when he was one of the most high-profile players in the NFL. Indeed, they seemed to happen every other year:

● A drunk driving arrest in Detroit in 1957, just before the season got underway.

● Another DUI arrest in Austin, Texas, after a 1959 exhibition game.

● And finally, an incident late in the ’61 season in which he drove into a stopped street car in Pittsburgh.

Nothing came of any of these screw-ups. Not a blessed thing. Layne ran a bootleg on the legal system the first two times — details to come — and talked his way out of it the third. And this being the boys-will-be-boys era in pro football, neither the league nor his teams (the Lions in the first instance, the Steelers in the other two) took any action.

You can imagine what the reaction would be today if, two weeks before the opener, a star quarterback was stopped at 2:10 a.m. for “traveling without lights . . . [and] straddling the center line,” then refused to take a breathalyzer test, according to reports. But Bobby skated because no jury in Detroit was going to convict the home-team QB, not one who’d led the Lions to two championships.

And so what started out with this . . .

. . . and progressed to this . . .

. . . conveniently ended up like this:

All you need to know about this Great Moment in Jurisprudence is that, according to The Associated Press, “One woman juror, leaving the courtroom, remarked, ‘Bobby ought to give us women a big kiss for letting him off.'”

A few years later, Dave Lewis, the sports columnist for the Long Beach (Calif.) Independent, wrote:

After [Les] Bingaman quit playing for the Lions following the 1954 season, he bought a half-interest in a bar, which immediately became a financial success.

When Layne was arrested on a drunk-driving charge a couple of years ago in Detroit, it developed during the trial that part of his tour that evening included Bingo’s watering trough.

Bingo gallantly took the stand and testified that the scotch he served had practically no alcoholic proof whatsoever, and he served it in glasses that measured less than an ounce.

After this was recorded in the newspapers, Doc Greene, one of Detroit’s top scribes, observed: “Greater love hath no man than he should ruin his business for a friend.”

As for the DUI case in Austin, it was dropped when the county attorney couldn’t get three key witnesses to voluntarily return to Texas to testify. (He couldn’t subpoena them because the charge was only a misdemeanor.) The three witnesses, by the way, were Steelers teammate Len Dawson and two Cardinals players, all of whom were in Layne’s car when he “struck a parked auto, then left the scene . . . and transferred to a taxicab,” AP reported.

Bobby’s lawyer suggested police officers “may have mistaken hoarseness for intoxication,” the wire service said. That was pretty funny, because in the Detroit trial, his lawyer argued that officers mistook his Texas drawl for intoxication. (Which is it, barristers?)

The run-in with the street car also happened in the wee hours: 2:30 a.m. Even better, the car Layne was driving belonged to Steelers running back Tom Tracy. Another teammate, Hall of Fame defensive lineman Ernie Stautner, once gave this version of the story to the Pittsburgh Press:

At Stautner recalled it, Layne got in the accident because he left a Thursday night “Last Supper” party at Dante’s [restaurant, one of Bobby’s favorite hangouts] earlier than everyone else. In fact, coach Buddy Parker later criticized Stautner for not being with Layne at the time of the accident.

Police said Layne lost control of his car on the street car tracks, which were wet, and hit the front of the trolley. Whatever. Anyway, that Sunday, the Steelers finished their season against the Cardinals in St. Louis, and Bobby — “playing with a patch over his left eye, which was cut in an auto accident last week,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported — was terrible, throwing two interceptions, fumbling twice and contributing mightily to a 20-0 loss.

He’d entered the game with 187 career touchdown passes, tying him with Sammy Baugh for the NFL record. But because he was blanked by the Cards, it wasn’t until the next season — the last of his 15 — that he overtook Slingin’ Sam, finishing with 196.

So ends the saga of Bobby Layne Behind the Wheel. But again, that was 50 years ago. In the 2000s, after two strikes, Michael Phelps might be left to twist in the wind. For one thing, it doesn’t sound like the Hoarseness Defense could be of much use to him.

Sound Bites IV

It’s accepted pretty much as fact that, until recently, no one paid much attention to concussions in the NFL. And by “no one,” I’m talking mostly about the league and the media who cover it. So it was a revelation to stumble across a newspaper story from 1953 that went into great detail about a player getting his bell rung.

The player was Billy Reynolds, a rookie running back for the Browns, who was making his pro debut in a preseason game against the 49ers. A summary of his day, according to UPI:

1. He ran head-on at full speed into [the Niners’] Hardy Brown, considered one of the hardest tacklers in the game.

2. He was picked up and carried off the field.

3. He was supposed to go into the game a short while later and never appeared, the Browns using only 10 men for one play.

4. In the fourth quarter, he ran on the field when he wasn’t supposed to, and the Browns were penalized for playing with 12 men.

Our sound bite, though, comes from Paul Brown, the Browns’ Hall of Fame coach, who had the following to say about the situation:

“Billy was completely out of his head after he and Hardy Brown collided. However, he is all right now. We could use him in the game against Los Angeles this weekend, but, just as a precautionary measure, we may not. He must have suffered some sort of a head concussion, although at the time we thought he was just shaken up.

“At the time of the crash, we didn’t think it was anything serious. But the shock to Billy’s system was such that he didn’t know what was going on. Guess we’ll just have to rest him up for a few days.”

The naiveté about head injuries is just stunning, isn’t it? That said, it’s interesting Brown even considered holding Reynolds out of the next game “as a precautionary measure.” Precaution and pro football didn’t always mix in those blood-and-guts years.

And sure enough, Reynolds suited up for the exhibition game against the Rams after just a four-day recovery period. He’s right there in the stats, carrying twice for minus-1 yard:

Sixty-one years later, here we are. Or rather, here the lawyers are, filing suits and working out settlements.

A Sunday of safeties

How often are safeties — the two-point kind — a major topic of conversation on an NFL Sunday (or even a minor topic of conversation)? They factored mightily, though, in two Week 5 games. In fact, both came in the fourth quarter and put teams in position for comeback wins, one of them in overtime. Safeties don’t get much more momentous than that.

The Browns scored the first with 11:02 left when linebacker Tank Carder swooped in and blocked a punt by the Titans’ Brett Kern out of the end zone. That narrowed the Tennessee lead to 28-15. Two Brian Hoyer-to-Travis Benjamin touchdown passes followed, giving the Cleveland — which had once trailed 28-3 — a stunning 29-28 victory. (As an added bonus, it was the biggest comeback in franchise history and the biggest road comeback in NFL/AFL history.)

And just think: It might never have happened without Carder’s safety.

A little later, at the Superdome, the Saints were down 31-26 to the Bucs with 6:44 to go in regulation when linebacker Junior Galette sacked Mike Glennon in the end zone to make it a three-point game. Shayne Graham booted a 44-yard field goal to send it to OT tied at 31, and New Orleans’ Khiry Robinson ended it by running 18 yards for the deciding score.

You’ve gotta admit, few things in football are more scintillating than a timely safety.

The only way the day could have been better is if one of the safeties had come in overtime. We’ve only had three of those, the most recent by the Dolphins’ Cameron Wake last season vs. the Bengals. Details here, courtesy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame website.

Safeties are kind of like a two-dollar bill. They change the arithmetic of a game. Granted, the two-point conversion also changes the math, but not nearly as dramatically. The latter, after all, gives a club only one additional point; it would have kicked the PAT, which is virtually automatic, anyway. Also, after a successful two-point conversion, you have to kick the ball away (unless, of course, you want to risk an onside kick). After a safety, you get to retain possession. The other team has to kick the ball to you. (Plus, it puts That Crazy Look in the eyes of your defense, which should never be underestimated.)

Funny thing is, when the NFL was getting going in the ’20s, the safety rule was much different. The play was still worth two points, but the team that gave up the safety, strangely enough, got to keep the ball. It was given a new set of downs starting from its 30.

The rule was changed in 1926 because clubs – pro and college both – were abusing it. If they were backed up in their own end late in the game and ahead by three or more, they’d take an intentional safety and run three more clock-killing plays. And if they were still comfortably ahead at that point, they could take another intentional safety and run three more plays. It was ridiculous. If you had a big enough lead, you could — theoretically, at least — keep taking intentional safeties and eat up the last several minutes of a game without having to lose possession.

Check out this excerpt from a New York Times story in 1925. It talks about the Giants, leading the Providence Steam Roller by a field goal in the closing minutes, pulling just such a stunt.

That “Hinky” Haines was a crafty one. (I put Hinky in quotes because his nickname was usually spelled H-i-n-k-e-y.)

You might also get a kick out of this excerpt from a Chicago Tribune story on the Racine (Wis.) Legion’s 10-4 win over the Chicago Cardinals in 1923. It’s the only time in NFL history a team has scored four points in a game. (And the Cards had Racine quarterback Shorty Barr to thank for it.)

Even after the rewrite in 1926, the safety rule needed some tweaking. That was evident after the Redskins lost the 1945 championship game to the Cleveland Rams, 15-14, because Sammy Baugh threw a pass out of his end zone that struck one of the goal posts — which in those days were located on the goal line. (It was considered a safety, for some forgotten reason, if the ball landed in the end zone.)

You can see the play — sort of — in this brief clip. (It was a miserably cold day. Players huddled under straw on the sideline to keep from getting frostbite.)

Naturally, Washington owner George Preston Marshall lobbied at the next league meeting to amend the antiquated — and rarely enforced — rule. And his lodge brothers went along because, well, an incomplete pass is an incomplete pass, right? Why should it ever be a safety? (Unless, that is, the quarterback throwing out of the end zone is guilty of intentional grounding. See Tom Brady in Super Bowl XLVI.)

After that, the safety receded into history and became what it always should have been: a curiosity, a freak occurrence, a mint left on a defender’s pillow. There hasn’t been a 2-0 final score since 1938, the Bears edging the Packers, and the safety certainly hasn’t had many memorable moments over the decades.

The biggest safety I can think of in recent years is the one that helped the Titans break open the 1999 AFC title game against the Jaguars. Tennessee was up 17-14 midway through the third quarter when defensive tackles Josh Evans and Jason Fisk broke through and sacked Mark Brunell in the end zone. Then Derrick Mason returned the free kick 80 yards for a touchdown, and the Titans were on their way to their first and only Super Bowl. A screen shot of the play-by-play:

One last factoid before you go: In 1929, when the Packers won their first NFL championship, they went undefeated (12-0-1) and outscored their opponents 198-22. At home, their defense was practically unscored on. In five games, they gave up only four points. Two safeties.

A brief glimpse of the NFL in 1960

Every once in a while some old NFL footage pops up on YouTube. Today’s discovery: the first few minutes of CBS’s broadcast of a 1960 game between the Colts and 49ers at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. It’s mostly pregame chatter between Niners’ broadcast team, Bob Fouts and Gordy Soltau, the latter a former receiver and kicker for the team. Perhaps you’ve heard of their sons — Dan, the Hall of Fame quarterback, and Mark, who writes for and edits Tiger Woods’ website (and used to work for Golf Digest).

Anyway, maybe the best thing about the clip is the way the Colts offense is introduced. Check it out:

Classic, huh? They line up at their positions, one by one, then run a play before heading to the sideline. Four of the guys who trotted out, of course, are in Canton: receiver Raymond Berry (82), tackle Jim Parker (77), quarterback Johnny Unitas (19) and running back Lenny Moore (24). It was quite the offense.

By all means watch the whole video if you’re interested. I just pulled out the intros because they were so amusingly retro. Something else in the clip also is pretty funny. At the top of the show, Soltau refers to the 49ers’ 26-14 win the week before over the Dallas “Texans.” Uh, Gordy, that’s the Dallas Cowboys. You can excuse him, though, because (a.) it was the Cowboys’ first year in the league; and (b.) he’d actually played against a team called the Dallas Texans in 1952 — twice. (In fact, he caught a touchdown pass in both games.)

The Texans folded after just one season, and many of their players — such as Hall of Fame defensive linemen Gino Marchetti and Art Donovan — moved on to Baltimore, which was given a franchise in ’53. Three years later Unitas arrived, and the rest is history.

Here’s Gordy’s flub:

Little-known fact: This game was the Beginning of the End for the ’50s Colts. After winning titles in ’58 and ’59, they got off to a 6-2 start in ’60 and looked like they might make it three in a row, which would have tied the NFL record. But the Niners forced six turnovers and upset them 30-22 — the start of a four-game Baltimore skid that knocked Johnny U. and Co. out of the running. The team that ended up winning the Western Conference that year? The Packers in Vince Lombardi’s second season.

The Dallas Texans/Cowboys, meanwhile, finished 0-11-1. Their situation would eventually improve, though.

PRO FOOTBALL DALY

The whole 100 yards — and sometimes the end zones, too.

Monthly Archives: October 2014

Gronk vs. the greats

MOST TOUCHDOWNS CATCHES, FIRST 56 GAMES

TD CATCHES BY NOTABLE TIGHT ENDS, FIRST 56 GAMES

The hazards of being a 100-catch receiver

SEASONS WITH THE MOST 100-CATCH RECEIVERS*

Coaching hires in the 2000s: the sequel

Friday Night Fights V: Ernie Ladd vs. Wahoo McDaniel

Ernie Ladd revisited

“He was so big and strong, he didn’t have to be mean.”

— Billy Shaw, the Bills’ Hall of Fame guard

More than you ever wanted to know about coaching hires

Michael Phelps and Bobby Layne

Sound Bites IV

“At the time of the crash, we didn’t think it was anything serious. But the shock to Billy’s system was such that he didn’t know what was going on. Guess we’ll just have to rest him up for a few days.”

A Sunday of safeties

A brief glimpse of the NFL in 1960